- metadata: - tags: #on/global-affairs/geopolitics/ukraine - related: - source: https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1635447488718028800?s=20 - people: [[Vivek G Ramaswamy]] --- ## Is opposing Russia in Ukraine a vital American national strategic interest? “No, it is not “vital.” Rather, this is a stark reminder of what is a vital American national strategic interest: national energy independence. This war is a symptom of America’s lack of self sufficiency. Putin is a tyrant and started this needless war, but he did so because we created incentives that tipped the balance of his decision-making in favor of invading: if he knows the West relies on him to provide oil and gas (because the U.S. and Western Europe have self-inflicted limitations on their own ability or willingness to produce), then Putin is in a stronger position–and that led him to think he could win. The Biden Administration weakened our energy security, which created the conditions for Putin to invade Ukraine, which is of course an undesired outcome. Biden, in turn, responded by calling for more oil and gas production, pretty much everywhere in the world other than in the U.S. itself. The more America is reliant on foreign energy and oil, the less leverage we have with petro dictators. The Europeans need to be the main upholders of European security. The Europeans, starting with the Germans, need to do more for themselves. Unfortunately, the Germans chose to ‘go green’ on energy, and so they’re looking to us to shoulder the load on Ukraine, as well as defense in general. We spend close to 4 percent of our GDP on defense, and the Germans spend barely over 1 percent. Ukraine is in their backyard, not ours. If the Germans and other European countries can’t or won’t produce their own energy, they should buy natural gas from Louisiana and Texas—and from Pennsylvania and my home state of Ohio. Foreign policy is all about prioritization, my top two foreign policy priorities are to Declare Independence from Communist China and to annihilate the Mexican drug cartels. The main thing should be the main thing: focus on China. China wants the Ukraine war to last as long as possible to deplete Western military capacity before invading Taiwan. It’s working: we think we appear stronger by helping Ukraine, but we actually become weaker vis-à-vis China. We’ve spent 20 years droning people in caves in the Middle East and Central Asia and have little to show for it. We should be taking out the people who have caused the death of more than 100,000 Americans every year–the Mexican drug cartels.” ## What specifically is our objective in Ukraine, and how will we know when we’ve achieved it? “Our objective in Ukraine should be to respect any prior legal treaty commitments the U.S. has made, so as to preserve our credibility when it comes to commitments in the future, which I believe we have already fulfilled – and indeed gone beyond. (I make a clear distinction between commitments to which Congress was made aware and approved, and whatever secret deals the Biden administration might have cooked up.) The Budapest Memorandum, signed by Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and the U.K., was supposed to assure Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, a massive stockpile, and received security protections–but not an alliance or pledge to go to war, just a commitment to respect the sovereignty of existing borders. Whether that was the right decision to make in 1994 is a point of reasonable debate, but it is in our long-term self interest to stick by our word. And we have. But now it’s time to move on.” “A key objective has already been achieved by revealing Russia to be a “paper tiger.” Russia’s military capabilities are far weaker than the U.S. defense establishment previously had assumed (their track record of being blatantly wrong about “intelligence” assessments only grows each year): recall how they predicted that Ukraine would fall within days–the same defense establishment who wrongly predicted that Kabul would not fall to the Taliban. Time to find a different term for our “intelligence experts.” Our second objective is to deter Putin from aggression against other European nations, including NATO powers. But we can achieve that goal in part by guaranteeing America’s energy independence, which our own President has unilaterally undermined. It is stunning that Biden lobbied against the EU adopting its Russian oil ban, while simultaneously sending $113 billion in aid to Ukraine to fight against Russia. In other words: Biden helps fund Putin’s war machine with one hand, and yet he sends money to Ukraine with the other. More importantly, if you want to deter Putin from invading Poland, then move the idle tens of thousands of troops we have from Germany into Poland to send a signal - not by fighting a war in Ukraine. A third objective is nudging—shaking, if necessary—the Europeans to take care of themselves. I believe in America First 2.0, and we should at least get the Europeans to Europe First 1.0. We actively undermine this very objective by offering a bottomless pit of aid to Ukraine.” ## What is the limit of funding and material you would be willing to send to the government of Ukraine? “Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s wise to telegraph our ends, and I believe the facts in January 2025 may be very different from where they are today. But let me be clear: if I were president right now, I would limit any further funding or support to Ukraine. Ukraine isn’t in the top five of American foreign policy priorities right now, and yet merely questioning whether the money we’ve spent on the war is being done effectively or perhaps even prolonging the war is seen as disloyal. We get accused by both Democrats and Republicans of being “Putin sympathizers.” The Washington uni-party and defense contractors want this conflict to go on forever; for the sake of the global economy and peace, we should be doing everything we can to end it tomorrow. As I mentioned, Biden gives $113 billion in aid to Ukraine while he lobbied against the EU ban on Russian oil imports on the other hand. The U.S. has shot itself in the foot with its own production capabilities. It’s unclear who wins this game, but the loser is clear: America. I’ll say again: the Europeans need to do more, a lot more — it’s their backyard, it’s their borders. The Europeans have gotten used to freeloading, and we know what happens to freeloaders — they become dependent, even lazy. We can’t be the nanny of Europe forever; we have too much to take care of here at home. We have a swiss-cheese of a southern border that pours in fentanyl killing hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. It’s time to secure our border before taking care of someone else’s. This would be an appropriate and morally justified use of military force: secure our southern border and annihilate the drug cartels responsible for countless American deaths on our own soil. We’ve discovered a big problem on our end—the weakness of our industrial base. I’m disturbed by reports that our aid to Ukraine has drained away munitions and other material that we could potentially need for our own defense.” “There is opportunity cost in depleting these defense resources–especially in protecting our own soil and border from Mexican cartels or in the case of Communist China. Critics of this view would say that these defense capabilities are different–that we need enhanced naval capabilities to counter China and defend Taiwan. That’s a hubristic view that we shouldn’t indulge when we have major future unknowns–opportunity costs are opportunity costs, period.” ## Should the United States support regime change in Russia? “No. We’ve seen this movie before–Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, the list goes on. History shows the U.S. is abysmal at effectuating regime change. And, even when we do, we usually end up regretting it. Regime change is riddled with unintended consequences. The bigger risk we need to worry about is driving Putin into Xi’s hands. Our policies are having precisely that effect right now.” Given that Russia’s economy and currency are stronger than before the war, do you believe that U.S. sanctions have been effective? “Clearly not. Russia is stronger because of higher oil and gas revenue owing to higher prices. The lesson for the U.S. and the West should be to abandon the climate cult that shackles the West while leaving Russia and China untouched. We restrict our own energy while the Russians and Chinese go pedal-to-the-metal on their own energy, including coal. The Biden administration jovially sacrifices our energy dominance on the altar of green goals—some mythical target in the far future that the world will never hit. As President I will end that foolish and self-destructive game.” ## Do you believe the United States faces the risk of nuclear war with Russia? “The risk of nuclear war goes up the more that China begins to back Russia - which is happening now before our eyes. This is the #1 risk factor to the U.S. taking an aggressive posture towards Russia while going soft on China: we drive Putin straight into Xi Jinping’s hands. The foreign policy establishment has demonstrated weakness time and time again when it comes to Russia–including in our nuclear arms negotiations with the Russian Federation, which continues even now. Putin and the Russians, and the Soviets before them, not only brazenly violated every nuclear arms control treaty we have with them, but the U.S. gives up any semblance of negotiating leverage. It’s humiliating. The Trump Administration, rightly, began to walk away from the New START Treaty as the Biden Administration swooped in and stopped that process, squandering all negotiating power and absurdly signed a five-year extension. Russia may be a third-world gas station with an economy the size of Pennsylvania. But, they are a third world gas station with more nuclear warheads than any other nation on the planet, including the U.S. The global defense establishment must dig its head out of the sand and buck up to the fact that China, who is not constrained by any nuclear arms treaty, is secretly building up its nuclear stockpile. They are nearing nuclear parity. For these reasons, it serves US national security interests to move ahead with full-spectrum missile defense to protect US soil. We cannot afford a bottomless pit of military spending and need to focus on the priorities that actually advance our national defense interests.”